Kenora Great War Project

 

Personal Details
Date of BirthJune 21, 1886
Place of BirthBrookside, Colchester, Nova Scotia
CountryCanada
Marital StatusSingle
Next of KinWilliam Hallett, father, Truro, Nova Scotia
Trade / CallingLocomotive Engineer
ReligionChurch of England
Service Details
Regimental Number33353
Service Record Link to Service Record
BattalionNo 3 Canadian Field Ambulance
ForceCanadian Expeditionary Force
BranchCanadian Medical Corps
Enlisted / ConscriptedEnlisted
Date of EnlistmentSeptember 25, 1914
Age at Enlistment28
Theatre of ServiceEurope
Prisoner of WarNo
Survived WarYes
Death Details
Date of DeathNovember 11, 1956
Age at Death70
Buried AtLake of the Woods Cemetery, Kenora, Ontario
Plot46E-12-3

Hallett, Clarence Beamish

Although he gave Truro, Nova Scotia as his birth place, Clarence Beamish Hallett was born on 21 June 1886 in a small community just outside of Truro called Brookside. His father William Courtney Hallett was from Sussex, New Brunswick while his mother Florence Emma Cox was from Falmouth, Nova Scotia. The couple married on 5 April 1883 in Truro and took up farming  in the Brookside/Truro area. Clarence had an older brother, Harold, and younger siblings Frank, Helen, Alice, Emma, and Ruth.

By the 1911 census Clarence had moved to Brandon, Manitoba and was working as a fireman for the Canadian Pacific Railway. Among the first to answer the call, having had his medical examination earlier that month, Clarence  signed his attestation papers  in Valcartier, Quebec on 25 September 1914. With brown eyes and dark hair, he was 28 years old. With the No 3 Canadian Field Ambulance that was organized at Valcartier that September, Private Clarence Hallett left Canada for overseas on the day of his enlistment.

By July of 1915, Clarence was in France serving with the No 3 Field Ambulance and was granted a 8 day leave in January of 1916. On 19 May 1916 during the battle of Hill 60, he sustained a serious shrapnel wound to his left foot, a telegram being sent to Truro to be phoned to family in Brookside.

Clarence spent two days at the No 10 Canadian Casualty Station at Dopenhinge, followed by  six weeks at the No 3 General Hospital at Boulogne before being evacuated to England. Once in England he spent six weeks at the Bearwood Convalescent Hospital and then was transferred to the Epsom Convalescent Hospital for seven weeks. His injury was deemed as a permanent disability. By May of 1917 he was attached to Cadre, Canadian Discharge Depot at Buxton and appointed Acting Sergeant with pay in November. In March of 1918, Clarence Beamish Hallett was on his way back to Canada.

On 31 May 1918, in Truro, Clarence married Frances Miller (Mellor), eldest daughter of Philip and Christine Miller (Mellor) of Buxton. Probably having met at some point while Clarence was in Buxton, Frances arrived in Canada aboard the Aquitania on the 29th. After the marriage the couple returned to Brandon as Clarence continued to work for the Canadian Pacific Railway, being promoted to engineer in 1922. The couple gave birth to at least one child, a daughter Edna. In 1930 the family moved to Kenora, Ontario as a transfer with the CPR.

Predeceased by his father William in 1927, his mother Florence in 1946, both back in Nova Scotia, and his wife Frances in April of 1951 while in Brandon attending a funeral of an old friend (burial in Brandon), Clarence Hallett died on 11 November 1956 in Kenora. He is interred in the Lake of the Woods Cemetery. At the time of death he was survived by their daughter Edna and three of his sisters. In honour of his service during the war and his resulting wound, Clarence’s name is on the Canadian Pacific Railway WW1 Roll of Honour, List 12.

by Judy Stockham

 


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